Firefly: A Different Story
by NightingaleRhapsody
Summary: A twist on the series. What if Simon hadn't broken out river? River escapes on her own and becomes part of the Serenity family.  A few years later, Simon and River meet again, but things have changed. Main Pairing *Jayne/River* established romance


Hello everyone! This is my first Firefly fanfiction. I've been considering writing one for a while, but didn't think I had it in me to write something even remotely close to being as good as Firefly. I hope I came close in this story. Please let me know what you thought about this first chapter. If I get enough feedback then I'll continue writing it. I hope you enjoy the story!

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><p>It had been years since he had seen HER. His beautiful, lovely, genius sister River had been absent from his life for five years, if he remembered correctly, which he did, being 'gifted' and all. Yet out of the five years, only 3 were unaccounted for…<p>

They had grown up in the high society side of the planet of Osiris. They had the best education, being from a wealthy family did have its advantages. He had become a well renowned surgeon, following in his fathers footsteps. River was quite a bit younger than him, even thought she was smarter than him. She had been accepted into a new boarding academy at the age of 14. She had been so happy to go, for they had the most exciting programs. She had left smiling, and he had been so happy for her.

They communicated regularly the first few months, before suddenly, the letters stopped coming. He had been worried, as had their parents. Yet, a simple call from The Academy had pacified them, saying that she was busy with her classes, and she would contact them as soon as she could. It ashamed him now to say that after that, his sister had fallen to the back of his mind, and he focused on his patients.

Then, three years ago, they got a call from The Academy, asking if they had any idea where River was. To say they were surprised was an understatement. They had sent out alerts on the Cortex, yet no one had seen his sister. Simon had even gone as far as going to the blackout zones of Osiris to see if they could find anything, yet still noting. He felt guilty, for he should have tried to keep in contact, he should have visited at the very least. He fell into a depression, nothing mattered anymore.

A year ago, he had decided to travel around, treating wounds in the hospitals of rim and border planets. He had found it satisfied him more that working in the pristine white hospitals, where the worst injury was a broken bone from slipping in the tub.

The latest planet he was working on was Hestia, a border planet that was almost identical to an old west town of Earth-That-Was. That's when he saw her.

At first sight, he had almost had an aneurism. Her face was still pixie like, framed with long curly brown hair. Her large inquisitive eyes were the main difference. They were aged, like she had seen more in her short life than most saw in a hundred years. And she looked right at him, recognition coloring her expression. That's when he notices her companions.

Two men were with her. One was of average height, dressed in neutral colors with a brown coat that looked weathered and torn. He wore two pistols on his waist, and from what Simon could tell, he was the leader of their trio. The other man was truly impressive. He was at least 6'3, with brown hair shaved close to his head. His eyes were calculating as they surveyed him. Two things about him stood out the most. One was the large gun strapped to his back. The other, was his hand that rested on his sisters shoulder in a too familiar way for his liking.

Quickly he made his way across the dirt street to stand before them. "River?"

"Hello, Simon. It's very nice to see you." Her voice was still soft and childlike, but her tone was cautious and cool. Like she didn't trust him.

"What are you doing here? The Academy said you disappeared." Her expression darkened, and the large man with the even larger gun tightened his hand on her shoulder.

"So, Albatross, I take it this is the brother you talked about?" The smaller man asked in an affectionate tone. One that his father hadn't ever used.

"You would be correct in your suspicion. This is my older brother, Simon." She answered, ignoring her brother's question.

"We thought you were kidnapped!" Simon exclaimed, not at all happy at being ignored.

"I'd watch that tone yer taking." The large man growled.

"It is fine, Jayne. There is no need to be aggravated." River pacified the hulking man, who had a girl's name. In any other situation, Simon would have laughed, but this man had his hands on his sister whom for all he knew was dead up till a few minutes ago.

He went to say something else, but his sister pinned him with a look he had never seen on a person before. It looked as if she as looking right into his very soul.

"My suspicions were correct. He does not know what happened." The giant man looked at River for a long moment, before looking back at Simon. He seemed to be weighing the possibility that he really didn't know what had happened, yet Simon couldn't care less what the man thought. What he really wanted to know was what had happened…

"You just got lucky." The Shorter man stated to Simon, and then turned his attention back to River. "Now, we do have work to be done."

"You are correct…" Rivers eyes got wide again, and her stance went ridged. Jayne again was on alert, hovering over the young woman like he was her guard dog. She came back all at once, shaking like a leaf on a blustery day.

"Reavers…" Was the only thing she could mutter, but the two men with her sprang into action. Jayne grabbed River, and hoisted her up into his arms, while the other man grabbed Simon by the arm and began to lead him to a mule up ahead.

"What are you doing!" Simon exclaimed, trying to yank his arm away from this man he didn't know. "Let go!"

The man swung around to face him, a feral look in his eyes. "Now you listen here. There are reavers on their way here. Now, I can leave you here, and not feel one inch of remorse 'cause I don't really feel you knew nothing about what was happening to your sister while she was at that 'academy'. But, I'm feeling mighty charitable at the moment, and I'm offering you a chance to get out alive, and un-raped. So either you shut the hell up, and get in the mule, or you can stay here and be a chew toy for the reavers." The man released him quickly, and jumped up into the pilots seat of the mule, and though he didn't trust the man, he wasn't about to lose his sister again. So, throwing caution to the wind, he climbed up into the passenger side, leaving his old life in the dust.

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><p>They flew through the dusty landscape, flying over rocks and barren trees for an immeasurable amount of time. Jayne, sitting in the back seat of the mule whispered words of consolation as he rocked the young girl in his arms. It always pained him to see her in this state. After what The Academy had done to her, after they had rescued her on the docks of Osiris, they had spent more time in the black to help her through these hard patches she often went though. They were more frequent when they were dirt side, and even worse when they came into close contact with the reavers. It made his blood boil…even more so now that her brother was with them.<p>

Jayne himself had a sister back home on Hera, and he couldn't imagine what he would do if those Alliance bastards ever put a finger on her. How could Rivers brother have let them take her away for 5 years without wondering?

It was at that thought when they arrived back where Serenity was docked, her hanger open, ready to swallow the mule up and make a hasty getaway. The Captain was a decent pilot, so it wasn't too hard for him to swing around and enter the Firefly backwards. As soon as they had cleared the opening, the doors slammed shut, and the telltale lurch of liftoff showed that Wash was already moving Serenity into the atmosphere.

The Captain and Simon got off the mule first, giving Jayne plenty of room to carry River off. He didn't acknowledge them as he made his way to their bunk to isolate her until she could reign in her physic ability's, and 'rebuild the walls' as she liked to put it. The Captain could handle everything else, especially telling her brother about the academy for all he cared.

"Where is he taking her?" Simon demanded as Jayne disappeared up the stairs to the catwalk. The Captain shook his head as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"He's takin' her to their bunk. It's easier for her to calm down when there's not so many people about."

Simon stared at him for a moment, blood vessels in his forehead standing out at the increase of blood pressure. "Their bunk?" His tone was deathly quiet. His sister shared a bunk with that hulking ape-man?

"Yep. They have been together for over a year now." The captain didn't sound like it was troublesome. Like he didn't see anything wrong with the situation. The man was obviously older than his sister, and at least triple her size. There was no way the sister he knew would find this man attractive. He was so angry; he didn't even realize that 3 women and an older man enter the cargo bay.

"Who's this?" A silky smooth voice asked from above them on the catwalk. Simon, startled, looked up quickly, his eyes landing on one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. She was exotic in coloring, skin like molten caramel, and raven hair that twisted around her hair in a sultry yet elegant way. Her eyes were feline green, accented and brought out more by the silken robes she wore. Now, even though Simon was caught by the lovely exotic woman, he could not however ignore the younger woman that was to her right.

Now she was something Simon hadn't ever seen. Hair of light honey, and warm brown eyes shined down at him, making him feel as if the sun had risen right there in the ship's cargo hold. She wasn't regal, and defiantly not exquisite like the woman he had seen first. She was…real. Not an ounce of makeup marred her pretty face, but she did have a smudge of black on her left cheek. Her clothes were simple pastels making her all the more bright. He had never seen a woman, other than River, but he didn't consider her a woman, so comfortable, so free to go without a mask and be who she truly was. It was, to his surprise, a huge turn on.

"Captain?" A strong voice called from the far left of the sunny woman, and Simon again had his attention drawn to another woman. Now this woman was what every man fantasized about at one point in his life or another. She was obviously a warrior woman, chin held high with her hair pulled back in a messy braid. Her clothes were similar to the captains, and she also sported a brown, warn and torn, coat. She was beautiful, yet extremely intimidating.

"This here is River's brother. He'll be joinin' us for the time. Simon, the lovely lady in the center is Inara, our resident companion. To her left is my fist mate Zoe. On her right, is our lovely mechanic Kayley. The man is Shepard Book." Simon inclined his head to each in turn, his eyes still on the sunny young woman. "Now, I do believe you had some questions about River…" That got him. His focus came snapping back to him at the speed of light.

"What happened to her at The Academy?" That was his first question. His sister had seemed so…so vicious when he had brought it up at the moment of their reunion.

The captain sighed, and the group above them shifted uncomfortably. "You don't beat around the bush, do ya?" He heaved another great sigh, like the weight of the verse was upon his broad shoulders. "Let's head up to the mess hall. We can sit down and discuss everything."

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><p>Simon followed obediently, almost like a lost puppy. He felt like a puppy, scared and confused by everything that he had encountered. Deep down, he began to regret ever leaving Osiris. They all seated themselves around the large table that stood in the center of the mess hall, and Simon looked expectantly at the captain, waiting for the answers he so desperately craved.<p>

"First of all," The captain began, "you have to understand, The Academy wasn't what you thought it was. It wasn't some special school; it was more like a prison. They cut into the brains of their 'students', altering the way they think. I'm not some great scholar, so I don't know the exact procedure, but from what River told us, they removed parts of her brain to make her rely on her natural instincts, removed the walls that kept other's thoughts out." Simon looked at him blankly. "They made her into a mind reader."

"A mind reader?" Simon drew out the words, trying to make sense of what he had just heard. There was no way she could be a mind reader.

"Yeah, we know. Crazy, ain't it? We were just as surprised when she came on board and knew things about us that she couldn't possibly have known."

"And the things she can do…it's, well, impressive to say the least. She can calculate the trajectory of a bullet before she even shoots, and she never misses. They turned her into a super mind reading assassin."

"How…why…I don't…" Simon struggled to find the right thing to say, the right question to ask.

"I know it's a lot to take in." Inara consoled as she leaned over to pat his hand in an affectionate way.

Simon stood up quickly and began to pace. "No, you have it all wrong. The Academy couldn't have possibly done that to her! The Alliance would never have allowed something like that to happen."

The Captain's face darkened. "They didn't just allow it, they funded it. They…" He stopped, and breathed heavily through his nose, as if he was a raging bull.

"Mal, you need to calm down." Inara's face was full of sympathy as she looked at the captain. "In any case," she looked back at Simon, "he's telling the truth. River was tortured by them. She was altered. You saw how she was when she came in close range of the Reavers. She can hear the madness of their minds."

Simon pondered the validity of such a thing. Could his 19 year old sister really be some alliance Guiney pig that was turned into a mind reading assassin? Part of him that always held that the Alliance was good, and they only wanted to help the people of lesser inelegance, didn't want to believe what they were saying. Yet, the bigger part of him, the big brother part, was saying they had to be telling the truth. He had seen her fall apart in front of his very eyes when the reavers had descended on to Hestia.

"How…how did you come across River?"

The Captain, Mal, smiled. "We were on a job on Osiris. We were just packing up, when this girl wondered onto the almost deserted docking bay. She was obviously scared, and she had blood on her head from where their needles had been ripped out." Simon was almost sick at that thought. "Jayne was the first one who saw her, and he reached her right in time to catch her as she collapsed from exhaustion."

Inara smiled, and continued where Mal had left off. "None of us had ever seen him that way. He held her so gently, as if she was made of glass. We took her onboard and cleaned her up. That's when she told us of what they had done to her. We all decided then and there that she was going to come with us, and we never looked back."

"She's part of the crew, now." Mal stated with pride.

"I…understand." Simon looked down at the table. "It makes sense. We, my parent's and I, never knew what had happened to her. We got a message from the Academy a few years ago saying that she disappeared. We thought she had been kidnapped, or she was dead. We never would have let her go to the Academy if we knew what they were doing."

"I certainly hope not. You see, Jayne has taken to river. Changed him for the best, she did." Shepard Book spoke for the first time. "Jayne never believe in love, and usually only went for a pleasurable moment or two instead of romance. But the moment he met her, he changed. He stayed with her while she recuperated physically, and he helped her get through her less lucid times when the thoughts around her got too strong. He loves her more than life itself, and if you meant to put her in harm's way, he won't be too kind or merciful."

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><p>So…how'd I do? Awful? Great? Let me know. And if it's not too much to ask, give me some feedback other than 'good story'. I want to know what your thought's are on this story. What you like and what you don't like. I'm open for any criticism, good or bad.<p>

Thanks!


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